


The Eyes of Blenheim: Chapter Six

by itstonedme



Series: The Eyes of Blenheim [6]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Edwardian Period, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 15:05:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orlijah meets <i>Downton Abbey</i>.  The year is 1905.  Orlando is the 9th Duke of Marlborough, married to the beautiful Olivia, with two children.  Elijah is his personal valet, a minister's son.  There is lust.   Enormous thanks to Stormatdusk for creating the banner for this series, over <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/94704.html">here</a>, where this chapter was originally posted in January 2014.  </p><p>Disclaimer: Fiction.  No disrespect intended to any actual persons.</p><p>Feedback: Always appreciated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eyes of Blenheim: Chapter Six

**Chapter 6**

When Orlando awakens, the room is less dim and he sees that Elijah has rolled onto his stomach, his head turned away. There is no doubt in Orlando's mind that, regardless of the hour, he is now awake for the day. He slips from beneath his covers and steps to the curtained window, peaking through the draperies to see dawn breaking over the London skyline. Gripping one length of the drapery, he flings it open, then slides the opposite length to fully illuminate the room. He turns at the moan behind him, smiling as Elijah pulls the bedspread up over his ear and mutters something inaudible. 

"It is morning, Elijah," Orlando says quietly, slipping beneath the bed linens. "You can't know how much pleasure it gives me to force you from your sleep as you do to me each day." 

Elijah sleepily turns his head to look at Orlando. "Mmph," he replies before slipping back to sleep.

Orlando settles close to him, his face inches away, and revels in the unguarded features. "You are rather enchanting when you are smothered in sleep," Orlando whispers but Elijah slumbers on.

 _You are so beautiful,_ Orlando thinks. _And while you sleep, you are without pretense – not my valet, not my servant, nothing except a beautiful man sharing my bed. I am lost._

Orlando sighs inwardly. And this last thought fills him with joy. He inches forward and with the barest of touches, brushes his lips against Elijah's mouth.

When he pulls back, Elijah is staring at him silently.

"Was I wrong to do that?" Orlando whispers, stricken. "I should not have done that."

Elijah says nothing, only looks back.

"I am so sorry," Orlando says.

"No!" Elijah replies because his first impulse is to see that his employer, his master, is not affronted. "No," he says more gently. "You don't need to apologize."

"You are only telling me that because you're in my employ. I am truly so sorry."

Elijah continues to look at him silently. Then he murmurs, "A part of me was uncomfortable, I cannot lie."

"A very big part?" Orlando asks.

"A very persistent one that I'd rather would go away. Because…what you did…was nice."

"That is promising," Orlando whispers. "It is a start."

"You smell of cherries."

"Unpleasantly so?" 

"Mmm-muh," Elijah rumbles sleepily, indicating it was not.

"And is this nice?" Orlando asks, emboldened, and he tilts his chin forward once more, pressing ever so gently with a slide of his tongue across Elijah's lower lip.

Elijah watches him retreat only inches away, their breaths mingling. Tentatively, he curls his lower lip inward and runs his tongue along it. "You taste of cherries as well."

"Pleasantly, or no?"

"Pleasantly." 

Orlando smiles. "I should feel like hell, Elijah, given the wretched night I had. But I feel more alive than I have in far too long. What do you feel?"

Elijah's eyes fall slowly over Orlando's face, down to his mouth, his cheek and nose before returning to his eyes. He sighs. "Fearful," he confides. "When we are close like this, just talking, the world goes away. But we cannot make that real, not matter how much we want it to be."

"I know," Orlando says. "There is something you must do to help put the fear aside." 

"What is that?" 

"Say my name."

Elijah frowns but is silent.

"You must say my name as you would a friend you met on the road. 'Orlando.' Say it."

Elijah searches his eyes. "Orlando," he whispers.

"You cannot know how wonderful that sounds coming from your lips. Say it again."

"Orlando."

"Now this time, smile when you tell me who I am."

It is not something that comes to Elijah easily. His smile starts and cracks, forming again timidly. "Orlando."

"This time, pretend I am an exceedingly petulant child who has just emptied a vase full of flowers on the floor."

Elijah spontaneously smiles, the gap in his teeth charming Orlando beyond measure. "Or-LAN-do!" he admonishes, unable to stop the giggle that tags it.

"There," Orlando laughs. "Did I come down from my pedestal just a little?"

Elijah's laugh fades away. "I don't know if that would be such a wise course."

"Then let us agree on how we might both be comfortable. Whenever we are alone and close like this, I would ask that you address me by my name as I will you. And you may do so to chastise me or to laugh with me. Because you are equal to me, Elijah. In my heart, you are my equal."

"I envy you the ability to feel that."

"I hope that in time you will," Orlando smiles. "May I kiss you again?"

"Yes," Elijah whispers.

Orlando slides towards him, his mouth settling gently onto Elijah's, his hand coming up to cup his cheek, long fingers curling into Elijah's sleep-mussed hair. Their lips do not part, but the kiss lingers, Orlando angling his face to fit their features, gently pushing Elijah's head back into his grip. When he lifts his mouth away, Elijah's eyes are closed, his lips parted. Orlando's thumb strokes his cheek and Elijah's eyes open, translucently blue in the morning light.

"There is so much I need to learn," Elijah breathes. 

"And you shall, if you will allow me and no others," Orlando says solemnly. "May I kiss you again?"

"I think you must."

Orlando shifts up onto his elbow and rolls Elijah onto his back, descending with more vigor, his tongue sliding between Elijah's pliant lips, his chest settling down upon Elijah's. As his tongue gently explores the softness inside Elijah's mouth, his hand slips up and sweeps Elijah's hair back from his forehead. He feels Elijah's tongue lift tentatively in a shy, exploratory greeting, which Orlando meets in kind. The kiss ends, but quickly resumes, each time with more assurance on both parts.

Suddenly, Elijah jerks forward. "Oh!" he cries out, breaking the kiss.

"What?" Orlando asks in alarm.

But Elijah has flushed red and stares at the ceiling.

Orlando grins. "Did some part of you like that more than you were expecting?"

Elijah looks at him, embarrassed. 

"May I try and guess where?" Orlando's grin broadens.

"Your Grace…"

"Stop," Orlando says. "You cannot call me that. It makes me feel … lecherous to hear you say it when you share my bed."

Elijah's brows have fixed together. "Orlando, I'm…things have changed. Down there."

Orlando face relaxes once more into a smile. "For the better? Changed like they never changed when a young woman kissed you?"

Elijah laughs. "Yes," he says with conviction. 

"Well, we've learned that men are decidedly your preference, Elijah. Thank God!"

Elijah's eyes slide towards him. "And that you of all men might be my preference too," he says with hesitant boldness.

"Thank God!" Orlando crows again, laughing. "Now, like the seducer I am trying not to be, do I have your permission to explore?"

Elijah looks uncomfortable.

"It's all right if you'd rather I didn't, truly," Orlando says soberly. "Has no one ever touched you there?" 

"Not as a man, no."

"May I?"

A scramble of thoughts play across Elijah's face – reluctance, curiosity, trepidation, willingness – and Orlando reads every one until he sees them conclude in unvoiced approval and a small nod.

He reaches out and pulls back the coverlet atop Elijah, and slides his hand along Elijah's flank until it comes to rest over the erection building in Elijah's groin. Elijah groans, his body folding upon itself in a spasm, and this time, Orlando feels it beneath his hand. "Oh Elijah," he sighs. "You feel wonderful."

Having his sexual response praised in any manner is another in a seemingly endless stream of novel experiences the past twenty-four hours have borne. Elijah shuts his eyes, his mouth parting on a sigh as Orlando's hand closes gently over the fabric of his trousers.

"I want to see your arousal," Orlando says, the register in his voice dropping, and like a whistle heard only by a hound, the tone of it quashes any reluctance on Elijah's part. His fingers creep to his waist band and he begins to unfasten his trouser button. "No," Orlando tells him. "Heaven knows you've undressed me often enough. It is my turn."

He unbuttons the waist band and the fly, pulling the shirt tails up and folding the trouser plackets back. He unfastens from the waist of Elijah's union suit down past the profile of his erection and slips his hand inside, closing around Elijah's cock.

It is the most unbearably sweet pressure Elijah has ever known.

"Oh!" Elijah cries out. "Oh God!" and he urgently grabs Orlando's wrist, trying to pull it away. 

"Sshh," Orlando murmurs, his lips nuzzling Elijah's temple. "Let it come if it wants to."

Elijah fights the urge to burst within Orlando's hand because manners dictate he should. Eagerness in any endeavour isn't his way, except in the matter of necessity, like a horse bolting or a fire needing to be doused. But as his balls pull tight, he suspects that some alarm is signalling an emergency does indeed exist, possibly of the combustible kind, and within seconds, he begins to pulse within Orlando's palm, his hips thrusting minutely with each burst. When it is done, he draws his arm up over his eyes, embarrassed at the unbridled enthusiasm of his orgasm despite its divine aftermath. 

"M'sorry," he mumbles.

Orlando descends directly onto his mouth to shut him up, his sticky hand fumbling with the buttons of his own underwear so that he might dive inside. He has only to stroke himself three times before he is coming himself, his breath gusting across Elijah's cheeks as his mouth grows slack upon his lips. He collapses beside Elijah, forehead to temple, listening to the sounds of their retreating breaths. 

"I may have been fourteen the last time I came so quickly," Orlando gasps.

"I may have been fourteen the last time I came," Elijah replies.

Orlando opens one eye, staring at Elijah's mouth. "Surely you jest."

"Not by much."

"How on earth have you kept from popping off all over the place?" Orlando asks. 

Elijah starts to laugh at the images that traipse after that question. 

"I mean, not in your bed all alone with no one to know?" Orlando asks. "I suspect even the Bishop of Rome is so inclined."

"Good lord, the maids who bundle my linens would know," Elijah says, aghast. "And truly, I think the Pope abstains."

"Back it up then," Orlando says. "Long before you came to work for me. Some bed somewhere, alone, your hand?"

Elijah sighs. "Maybe once or twice."

"And I was hoping you'd tell me that you abused yourself these last few months with visions of me filling your head."

Elijah turns to him. "I respect you too much for that."

Orlando rolls onto his back laughing, and he can feel Elijah join him, rather bewildered. "Please," Orlando gasps. "Respect me less and masturbate to me more."

"I may have to now," Elijah grins.

Orlando turns to him. "Make that a promise."

"Is that a ducal order, Your _Grace_?" 

Orlando grins at him, his eyes falling to Elijah's lips. "What do you want to do today?" he asks, in love with the present. "Before we have to leave the city?"

"I hadn't thought of anything. I'm rather at your beck and call."

"Let's go riding," Orlando grins, rolling towards him, his finger coming to stroke Elijah's lip. "Let's get some horses and go into the Park."

Elijah smile fades away. "Are you certain that wouldn't be misconstrued?"

Orlando laughs. "Do you think it would create a scandal for a duke to ride with his valet so that he had company? We'll behave civilly. There shall be no public molestation," he adds dramatically.

"That would be nice," Elijah says after a bit. "The riding part."

"Then let's wash up and sort our clothes and luggage and go find out how Boyd passed his evening."

Elijah tucks himself in and fastens his clothing and spontaneously stretches hard, arms straightened above his head, his hands against the headboard, toes pointed and back arched. When he's done, he glances at Orlando. "It's part of how I wake up."

Orlando leans in for a quick kiss. "And I hope to see many more of them. Good lord, but I'm loathe to leave you and this bed." He climbs out his side. "Did you pack me a change of underwear?"

"Always, Your Grace," Elijah replies before catching himself and giving Orlando an apologetic smile. "You did ask a valet question."

"Come here," Orlando grins, kneeling across the bed and pulling Elijah towards him for a kiss. "I did indeed, Wood."

The sweetness of their kiss in the brightness of dawn causes them both to pull away, eyes shining.

Once out of bed, they go their separate ways, Elijah to his bedroom and Orlando directly to the lavatory. Elijah turns down his bedding and tosses the sheets, and is in the process of laying in it, fully clothed, when Orlando appears at the doorway, hands motioning in exasperation.

"Where would I find my shaving gear?" he asks. "Do you understand how useless I can be? And what on earth are you doing?"

Elijah rolls to the far side and back, punching several pillows. "Making it look like I slept here."

Orlando has already climbed onto the bed and is crawling over top of him with a devilish grin.

"Alone, Your Grace," Elijah laughs breathlessly. " _Orlando,_ sorry, alone. For God's sake, we can't leave our ejaculate in every room."

Orlando folds himself gently on top of Elijah. "Says who?" he asks, carefully removing Elijah's eyeglasses and stretching to set them on the bedside table. "Where in the book of modern manners is that particular rule stated?" He finds Elijah's mouth with his own. When it ends, he presses his pelvis against Elijah's where they both discover the results of the kiss.

"I need to change," Elijah murmurs.

"You need to strip," Orlando replies.

"Yes, that is part of changing," Elijah grins.

"Be quick about it," Orlando says, rolling off him onto the bed. He is already unbuttoning his undershirt.

Elijah gets out of bed and begins to undress, carefully folding each garment and laying them on the dressing chair. When he is down to his union suit, he turns away.

"Elijah," Orlando admonishes gently after tossing his discarded under garments to the floor. "I felt you come in my hand. Let's not stand on ceremony now. Turn and face me."

Elijah does, and any modesty he had been entertaining is abruptly interrupted by a fully naked Orlando, long limbs lapping each other on his bed, face intent upon him. His Grace naked is not something with which Elijah is unaccustomed. However, His Grace naked with an earnest erection recumbent upon the sheets, warm brown eyes alive with all manner of lustful promise – this is new and a terrific amount to assimilate. He audibly exhales and quickly strips. 

"Yessss," Orlando murmurs as Elijah crawls into bed and into his arms. "To hell with Boyd."

"We need to be quiet," Elijah whispers, angling his head towards the wall.

"Yes," Orlando says, his mouth sliding along Elijah's throat. "Let's see you try." He kisses along Elijah's chest, one hand stroking downwards to collect Elijah's erection in his hand.

"Oh God," Elijah groans before bringing his hand up to cover his mouth.

Orlando slips his leg between Elijah's, forcing them apart and drapes over him, collecting both of their cocks in his hand.

Elijah bites down on his knuckles and winces.

"Here," Orlando murmurs, pushing at Elijah's hand with his cheek. "Use my mouth instead."

They kiss, Elijah writhing beneath the onslaught of Orlando's assault, his body a raw nerve of ache. He sucks breath through his nostrils, Orlando's tongue filling a mouth that desperately needs air as much as it needs to cry out. His thoughts are a maelstrom of discoveries: _So this is what making love is all about. And I'm finally able to know it. With Orlando, who desires me, desires my body, not his wife's, not a woman's. Mine. And he feels so strange, and yet so right, and…_

"Stop," he gasps, and Orlando lifts his lips and stills his hand.

"Have I hurt you?" Orlando asks, more fearful instead that Elijah might be reconsidering, finding this entire sequence of affairs too abrupt and disquieting to pursue.

"Tell me what to do." 

Orlando looks at him abashedly. "Of course," he says. "I wasn't…I should have known better. Touch me, Elijah." 

"Where?"

"Everywhere," Orlando breathes. "Touch my cheek."

Elijah does, and Orlando turns to kiss his palm. 

"Touch my arm." 

Delicately, Elijah brings his fingers to Orlando arm and feels Orlando shudder, his cock jumping against his own. "Oh," he utters at the discovery. He traces his hand upwards, along Orlando's shoulder to his neck where the pulse of blood beats fiercely beneath his fingers. He continues upwards, tracing the unshaved jaw before he threads his fingers into Orlando's hair. 

"Lift your foot over my calf and hold me," Orlando tells him.

Elijah slips his heel over Orlando's leg, and when Orlando groans and rests more heavily against him, he slips his other heel over the other leg and pulls Orlando close. It is all so foreign, so new, this contact, these acts. The sheer volume of skin against his own, its closeness, overwhelms him. He wants nothing more to let it all wash over him, to banish all words and movement, so that he might give himself time to take it all in.

"Now look at me," Orlando says, and they lie locked together, watching each other as Orlando's hand resumes a slow, firm stroke. "Because I've waited too long to lie here, holding you, looking into your eyes."

Elijah tightens his fingers and pulls Orlando towards him, his lips coming up, opened, breathless. "I don't know what to do, and yet I want to do everything."

They kiss, and this time, there is no shyness on Elijah's part. He greets Orlando's tongue urgently, hungrily, and if he were to give it a moment's analysis, which he does not, he would understand that there are places – wet, cherry sweet and soft as silk – in which the distinctions of class are absolutely levelled. No, there is no thought, only desire after years of it being deeply stored away, and like the sudden lighting of a room, Elijah has being sexually illuminated. He wraps an arm around Orlando's back, hand sliding down to the divot low on its plane, pressing, legs tightening, and he surges up into Orlando's hand, once and again and again.

"Oh Elijah," Orlando says, his mouth sliding to Elijah's ear, listening to the small, desperate sounds that Elijah is making. He feels the hummingbird strokes of eyelashes at his temple and he turns to kiss them, his thumb brushing the ooze of cum from Elijah's cock, bringing it back to mix with his own. 

Elijah whimpers and grabs at his waist. "I want something," he gasps urgently, brows furrowed.

"You want to come, as do I."

"No, more than that. I need something. I need more."

"Oh dear heart, I suspect you want to either fuck or be fucked."

"Something," Elijah cries, so caught up in his personal rapture that the vulgarity of Orlando's words do nothing more than to sum it up exactly and ramp it up considerably.

Orlando squirms from his grasp, sliding down Elijah's body, and without preamble or warning, descends directly onto Elijah's cock with his mouth.

It's not a word that erupts out of Elijah, more a guttural explosion, and he grabs the pillow to muffle the noise and give him something to bite. And frankly, he doesn't want to look. He doesn't want to see his duke with a mouthful of his own cock. It is too sinful, too…delicious, too unbearable, and oh God, is he going to come again in the span of fifteen minutes? He can't keep his hips steady; they want to plunge, to rut so that he might bury himself as far into Orlando as he possibly can. He slams one fist down onto the bedding and thrusts up and holds, and has only enough sense to lift the pillow and whimper, "Stop" before he's coming all over again, this time, thankfully, not in Orlando's mouth but over his own stomach.

He lies there, completely spent and detached, aware that Orlando is moving, straddling him and lowering himself onto Elijah's torso, his nipples eye-level with Elijah's face, and Elijah is cognizant enough to notice they are pipped and flushed. Slowly, Orlando slides his cock and balls through the smear on Elijah's tummy, back and forth, before inching back down, taking the wetness with him to slide his cock between Elijah's legs. 

"Close your legs," Orlando murmurs as he folds himself on top of Elijah, gathering him in his arms.

Elijah does, trapping Orlando's erection against his now lacquered balls, and Orlando beginning to slowly thrust, closing his arms around Elijah's shoulders, kissing his cheek, his temple, his hair. 

It is an act so close to actual fornication that Elijah is momentarily thrown out of his body, out of the bed, viewing the two of them as a stranger might, and a wave of unease rolls through him. He slides his hands up Orlando's back, fingers wide and palms flat, striving to recapture the intimacy that his thoughts have ripped away.

They rock silently, Orlando eventually lifting his head and propping himself on his forearms, Elijah's hair pushed back so that he can stare into his eyes. "Stay with me, Elijah," he says. "I can hear your thoughts. Do not retreat from the boldness of my desire. See me only as a man who wants to share his body and soul with you, not simply the shell of a rich man."

Elijah cannot think of what to say, so uncanny has been Orlando's reading of his mind. He feels utterly inexperienced with such frankness and yet emboldened by it.

"Tell me to stop and I will stop," Orlando says. "I never want you to feel anything but a willingness to be with me."

"I don't know if I am ready for… _that_ ," Elijah says, meaning the act of love, of penetration. 

"It doesn't matter," Orlando says. "If you are never ready, we will still find ways to love each other. You are so innocent in this regard, but you are so wise in your devotion. I want to be as devoted to you as you are to me."

"Yes," Elijah replies for he wants desperately to believe it.

"You do not know the power you have over me, Elijah. I am enslaved by my desire for you." Orlando drops his head as the heat builds in his pelvis. His motion staggers for a moment before he leans forward, his lips against Elijah's cheek. "I know my feelings are greater than what you feel for me. And yet I would risk everything in the hope that you might one day regard me the same way."

And in that moment, Elijah understands. Orlando is simply…Orlando, simply a man in love and vulnerable in that love. And in this vulnerability, for whatever their individual reasons, they are entirely equal. In that moment, it takes very little effort for Elijah to banish all prior notions of the carnal depravity of homosexual union from his thoughts. 

He runs his hands up Orlando's back, marvelling once more at his nakedness, so new in every way yet so old in some primitive part of his being. The tumble of his thoughts is broken as he watches Orlando's orgasm break, a stuttering vacancy glossing his eyes, his features relaxing as tiny puffs of breath beat against Elijah's cheek. It is a powerful moment for Elijah, informing him of just how great his ability is to command love in return. 

They lay quiet and wet, and Elijah can feel the diminishing thunder of Orlando's heartbeat throughout his body. "Another room shot to hell," he whispers, and Orlando starts to shake on top of him before kissing his ear. 

"I don't want to leave," Orlando says. "I could stay here with you for days."

"I suspect we would become the scandal of England if we did."

Orlando lifts his head. "The moment you leave my arms, the moment we leave this bed, this room, this hotel, we will be drawing apart. Promise me that you will hold this moment in your thoughts and not let any physical distance or others come between us. Promise me."

The urgency and disquiet in Orlando's voice touches Elijah, and he draws his fingers across Orlando's brow. "I promise."

"No, Elijah, truly. Promise me."

Elijah's eyes soften. This man – this rich and accomplished and complicated man – is being freshly made before his eyes. "I solemnly promise. But we must be very careful. Do not mistake my manner if I appear distant. It is only for others to witness, not for you."

"As long as I know what is here," Orlando says, and he places his hand over Elijah's heart, "then I am content."

They are silent for a moment before Elijah whispers, "We must bathe."

"What a prospect," Orlando whispers back with a laugh, "that I have the chance to wash you for a change." 

*

Boyd flicks his cigarette to the pavement and unlatches the passenger door of the motor carriage, nodding a greeting to Elijah. The porter has brought their luggage from the lobby and set it at the curb, and Elijah monitors that all pieces are present and accounted for. He can't help reflecting upon how the valet who arrived a scant twenty-four hours earlier is not the same valet checking out today. He assumes he will always be fond of The Savoy.

"Did you manage breakfast, Boyd?" he asks their driver.

"I did," the driver answers, hefting the duke's several pieces of steamer trunk luggage into the car. "Probably nothing as la-di-da as you and His Grace managed to find, but the pair of sweet warm muffins I managed to et were a sight more delectable than your fare, if you get my meaning."

Elijah nods. "Do you think the young lady in question would be pleased with your assessment?" He's too aware of catering to his own temptations to suppress the edge of smile in his tone.

"First, she weren't that young and second, I suspect she weren't no lady, but yes, I think she would agree that all appetites were amply taken care of." He inhales deeply and pats his hip bones. "And then some."

"His Grace shan't be long. He ran into a fellow in the lobby on his way to check out. Do you ride, Boyd? Horses, I mean."

Boyd winks before shaking his head. "There's only shaggy heifers and sheep where I’m from. Shite for taking a saddle. Why ya askin'?"

"His Grace would like to go for one in Hyde Park before we leave London. He's looking for company and asked me to join him. I thought you might like to come along as well."

Boyd strokes the back fender with his gloved hand. "You two gad about while I keep an eye on this filly. I much prefer the smell of petrol to what comes out the arse end of a horse."

 _Excellent,_ Elijah thinks, confident that he's nipped any chatter once they return to Blenheim.

To be continued


End file.
